How to Ship Posters

Think back to when you were a kid, and picture your room. Did you have posters on the wall? Chances are, you answered “yes!” Posters are a time-honored tradition for kids to hang in their rooms all around the world, but it’s not just kids who do it these days. There are tons of fans and memorabilia collectors out there who still buy posters, which means there’s a huge market for online sellers…and that means there are a lot of poster shippers out there, too. If you’re one of them and are looking for some guidance, you’ve come to the right place. This article is all about how to ship posters, including how to pack them properly and how to save the most money doing it. Let’s roll!

Table of Contents

• Roll Up Posters and Pack Them Inside of Cylindrical Mailing Tubes
• Weight-Based Priority Mail is the Cheapest Service for Shipping Posters
• USPS and Other Carriers Consider Tubes as “Irregular Packages”
• Consider Purchasing Shipping Insurance For Your Poster
• Save Money on Priority Mail Labels with Online Shipping Software

Roll Up Posters and Pack Them Inside of Cylindrical Mailing Tubes

The first thing you need to think about when shipping posters is how to properly pack them. As a general rule of thumb in the industry (and in life), you never want to fold your poster! Instead, roll it up into a cylinder as tight as you can, and gently place it inside of a cardboard mailing tube. Most tubes have cylindrical shapes themselves, which make them the perfect type of packaging option for shipping posters.

If you’re on the hunt for cardboard tubes, the ULINE website has a ton of options to meet your needs. You can also order free Priority Mail tubes on the USPS website that will come directly to your door, free of charge! We’ve linked the two different tube options that USPS offers below:

• Priority Mail/Priority Mail Express Small Tube (~26 inches in length)
• Priority Mail/Priority Mail Express Medium Tube (~38 inches in length)

Weight-Based Priority Mail is the Cheapest Service for Shipping Posters

Once they’re inside of the tubes, most posters are at least a couple of feet wide. Even the smaller option of the USPS tubes we linked above is roughly 26 inches in length. Due to this, most tubes unfortunately won’t qualify for USPS First Class Package Service rates, even though they’re technically lightweight shipments (the maximum length a package can have to qualify for First Class Package is 22 inches). So, the cheapest available service for shipping posters is USPS Priority Mail.

Pro Tip: If you use the Priority Mail tubes that you can get from the USPS website, you have to pay for Priority Mail service, anyway!

USPS and Other Carriers Consider Tubes as “Irregular Packages”

The one downside to sending a poster inside of a tube with USPS is that you’ll likely incur extra surcharges on top of the cost of postage. As of April 3rd, 2022, USPS imposes surcharges on most mailing tubes as part of their new “non-standard fees” they introduced. Two of these fees may apply to your poster shipment, depending on how long your tube is. We’ve listed those two non-standard fees below:

• $4 if any length of your package exceeds 22 inches but is less than 30 inches
• $15 if any length of your package exceeds 30 inches

Note: These costs get added on top of the cost of your postage. So, as an easy example, if your tube costs $10 to ship with Priority Mail but happens to be 25 inches long, you’ll pay a total of $14.

To learn more about these surcharges, check out our article on the new USPS non-standard fees.

Consider Purchasing Shipping Insurance For Your Poster

Posters aren’t fragile items by any means…but sometimes they can take damage during transit if the tube gets punctured or bends at all. When this happens, posters are unsalvageable, and you may find yourself needing to go out of pocket in order to ship another one to your recipient. However, you can hedge against this possibility by protecting your package with shipping insurance.

When you purchase shipping insurance, you can file a claim for the full declared value of your package if it goes missing or takes any damage during its journey. It typically only costs a couple of bucks to insure the full value of an item like a poster, so in our experience, it’s well worth the investment.

Save Money on Priority Mail Labels with Online Shipping Software

While you’ll incur surcharges on sending posters almost 99% of the time with the new USPS rate structure, there are still ways you can put some money back in your pocket. Hands down, the best strategy for this is to use online shipping software to buy USPS labels at deep discounts.

When you use shipping software, you get access to special levels of discounts that carriers like USPS typically only give to huge commercial shippers who send more than 50,000 packages per year. This level of discounts for USPS is known as Commercial Pricing…and with the best shipping software options out there, you’ll get to ship at these discounts for no extra charge on top of your postage costs. In some cases, these discounts can save you 33% off of what you’d pay to ship the same package with Priority Mail at your local Post Office. If you’re an online seller sending lots of posters out, these savings can end up putting a ton of money back in your pocket!